Devin Townsend is on a roll this week, announcing plans in a stream-of-consciousness fashion via Twitter. Yesterday he dropped info like the themes of his upcoming album Empath, the personnel involved with its recording and more. Today he added to the info, sharing plans for his upcoming live shows.

Unlike recent live performances with Devin Townsend Project which featured a steady cast of musicians, Townsend appears ready to try something new. In a tweet, he talked about how going forward it’s going to be a lot different for him. With a band he needed to keep on a payroll, he was forced to grind and constantly tour to pay the bills. Like he mentioned in our interview from earlier this week, Townsend doesn’t plan to form a new band while he goes out on tour.

In terms of touring, it’s going to be much different for me from this point for the foreseeable future. If I’m not responsible for a band, it means touring to pay the bills is not a hing, and therefore I don’t have to grind it constantly. I’m more than fine with that…

— Devin Townsend (@dvntownsend) August 17, 2018

Instead, he will do something completely different — what he refers to as a “One Man Show.” His post suggests these shows would consist of a combination of acoustic and electric music, Q & A and spoken word. Those worried that this is the end of an era for Townsend can breath easy. He doesn’t plan to completely abandon his ideas for big shows with crazy production (like his recent Plovdiv show playing Ocean Machine in full with an orchestra), but simply take a temporary shift in approach.

I will start next year in a bunch of places doing essentially a ‘one man show’ that will be a combo of acoustic, electric, q&a, and spoken. It will kind of combine with a promo tour around he release of the album (March) …the parameters of this are being discussed…

— Devin Townsend (@dvntownsend) August 17, 2018

I still have ideas and options for big shows with crazy production, but it’s important for me to have a life amidst all of this. Music is so important to me, but balance is more so. I am not making any decisions regarding that stuff currently. I just want the best album possible.

— Devin Townsend (@dvntownsend) August 17, 2018

His second-to-last tweet of the day explains that while music is very important to him, so is finding a balance in life. He also makes it clear that right now his priority is to make Empath the best album possible and that it’s both a leap of faith and a turning point for him.

Empath will be under my name. It’s representative of a turning point for me. It’s a leap of faith, but I do have faith in it. Cheers for the support. 🙂

— Devin Townsend (@dvntownsend) August 17, 2018

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat